27 Result(s)
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Chapter
Correction to: Essay on Machines in General (1786)
In the original version of the book, the following belated corrections have been made.
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Chapter
Correction to: Everettian Probabilities, The Deutsch-Wallace Theorem and the Principal Principle
In the original version of the book, there was a spelling error in the chapter title wherein “Everettian” was incorrectly spelt as “Eerettian”.
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Chapter
Erratum to: Relativity without Spacetime
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Book
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Chapter
Epistemic Justification
What is the nature of the justifier and of the justified, and how are they related? The answers to these questions depend on whether one embraces internalism or externalism. As far as the formal side of the ju...
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Chapter
Fading Foundations and the Emergence of Justification
A probabilistic regress, if benign, is characterized by the feature of fading foundations: the effect of the foundational term in a finite chain diminishes as the chain becomes longer, and completely dies away...
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Chapter
Conceptual Objections
There are two conceptual objections to the idea of justification by an infinite regress. First, there is no ground from which the justification can originate. Second, if a regress could justify a proposition, ...
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Chapter
Loops and Networks
The analysis so far concerned only one-dimensional epistemic chains. In this chapter two extensions are investigated. The first treats loops rather than chains. We show that generally, i.e. in what we have cal...
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Chapter
The Regress Problem
The attempt to justify our beliefs leads to the regress problem. We briefly recount the problem’s history and recall the two traditional solutions, foundationalism and coherentism, before turning to infinitism...
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Chapter
The Probabilistic Regress
During more than twenty years Clarence Irving Lewis and Hans Reichenbach pursued an unresolved debate that is relevant to the question of whether infinite epistemic chains make sense. Lewis, the nay-sayer, hel...
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Chapter
Finite Minds
Can finite minds encompass an infinite number of beliefs? There is a difference between being able to complete an infinite series and being able to compute its outcome; and justification is more than mere calc...
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Chapter
Higher-Order Probabilities
At first sight, a hierarchical regress formed by probability statements about probability statements appears to be different from the probabilistic regress of the previous chapters. After all, the former invol...
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Book
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Chapter
Introduction
This chapter introduces the theme of the book (i.e., the challenge of chance) and includes brief surveys of the individual chapters.
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Chapter
When Chance Strikes: Random Mutational Events as a Cause of Birth Defects and Cancer
Faithful and stable inheritance of DNA is coupled with occasional random errors of replication that lead to a change in the DNA code known as mutation. Mutations can be considered as “good” because they are th...
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Chapter
Chance, Variation and the Nature of Causality in Ecological Communities
Chance is pervasive in nature. Erratic events such as storms and fires can cause major damage to an ecosystem. Rare successful long distance dispersal events like a viable seed landing in just the right habita...
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Chapter
Accidental Harm Under (Roman) Civil Law
A leading idea under Roman private law and nearly all European legal systems is that an owner has to bear the risk of an accidental loss (casus). An accident is a circumstance for which a third party cannot be bl...
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Chapter
The Mathematical Foundations of Randomness
We give a nontechnical account of the mathematical theory of randomness. The theory of randomness is founded on computability theory, and it is nowadays often referred to as algorithmic randomness. It comes in...
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Chapter
Randomness and the Games of Science
Recently it has become clear that too many findings reported in the scientific literature are irreproducible. We study the causes of this phenomenon from a statistical perspective. Although a certain amount of...
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Chapter
Chance in the Hebrew Bible: Views in Job and Genesis 1
There are a variety of views on ‘chance’ to be found in the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. In this chapter we will discuss the Book of Job and the opening chapter in the Book of Genesis, i.e. Genesis 1, both ...
